I’ve just finished reading a book about a vampires. (Yes, creepy, but if you aren’t living under a rock, you’ve heard of them or read them yourself.) Anyway, the characters compare the memories they have from the time they are human to the time they are vampires. In this particular saga the vampires have excellent senses and memory. We have just returned from two whirlwind back to back vacations and I find myself longing for a “vampire memory!” My “mom memory” can’t remember exactly that phrase I wasn’t going to forget that Memmy said at the amusement park. Which place did we go on which day? Which kid said what? liked what? ate what? It’s a little jumbled…
I just laughed at Papa Bear for going to the store with Papaw to get stuff for making breakfast. (Papa Bear makes fantastic breakfast and he loves to do it. If you’d like a breakfast date one Saturday morning, let us know!) Well, he planned to make biscuits, gravy, bacon, and eggs. He starts unpacking and cleaning the counter only to ask me to go back to the store and get Crisco. As I’m putting on my shoes: “Grab some buttermilk too.” OK – how could you forget to get buttermilk to make buttermilk biscuits? I could see the Crisco. We happened to be out and we do normally have it stocked in the pantry. But buttermilk? I gave him a hard time about needing to make a list for his “almost 50” brain. He laughed that he meant to, but forgot.
Now, here’s where it freaks me out. If he, 12 years my senior, is having a hard time remembering, what future does that paint for me!? I do NOT leave for the store without a list already – even if I only have to get 3 or 4 items. I am forever searching for my planner or my keys or my lipgloss. I circle back to the house in my gas guzzler to grab a library book to return, or the check I need to deposit or the shorts to take back to Target. I “misplace” my cell phone for a week or two several times a year. (I found it today – lost just over a week this time.) Separately my husband and my friend B both wondered this week how I haven’t misplaced a child! I just thank God that my little people are loud and clingy – a blessing after all!
Your breakfast story reminds me of the time Scott wanted to make BLT’s. He called me at work and said “hey, i’m making blt’s for supper, can you stop by the store, we’re out of bacon, tomatoes and bread”. So basically, I guess he was busy spreading the mayo on the lettuce. We still laugh about that one.
🙂 We’ll have to make a date for the Papa Bear Diner some Saturday! (Coincidentally, my favorite childhood restaurant was “The Golden Bear” where my Papa convinced me if I wasn’t good, the golden bear who made the pancakes would come growl at me. I was way too old to believe this, but I did.)
I read once, and quote often, the fact that your memory is affected when you have children because you use up so much space with their data. (I mean, just in the first days, you’ve memorized their birth weight, their birth date, what side you nursed on last, etc.) I fear I am about to become much more forgetful.
🙂
p.s. I hope you enjoyed your vacations! I can’t wait to hear about them…fuzzy memory or no! I kept a notebook with me on vacation to write down such gems as, “Guess what those people came all the way to the beach to do? Smoke!” 🙂
Brooke